This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application Reference No. 2000-066548, filed Mar. 10, 2000.
The present invention relates to a configuration information management system for managing configuration information of each of distributed computers, more particularly to an effective technique preferred for a configuration information management system for setting up the configuration information divided and defined in each computer as its route information.
There is a conventional method for managing configuration information of each of distributed computers collectively by setting up the whole configuration of those distributed computers in one computer referred to as a manager. In this case, the configuration information of each computer is entered to the manager manually or the manager attempts to communicate with each of those distributed computers so as to collect the configuration information of each lower-order computer in a network according to the returned IP address (hereinafter, the processing will be referred to as polling).
There is also another conventional method employed when a system configuration has a hierarchical structure consisting of branch offices, departments, etc. The manager has hierarchical layers in such a case. In this case, the manager of a lower-order hierarchical layer is referred to as a sub-manager. When managing such a lower-order hierarchical information, the configuration information of each computer under the sub-manager in a network is entered to the sub-manager manually or the sub-manager collects the configuration information through the above-described polling.
The system configuration information entered or collected as described above is displayed as a system configuration map and used by the manager to execute remote commands to specified distributed computers on the map. The system configuration information is also used by each of the distributed computers to send events to its higher-order computer.
The Japanese Patent Prepublication No.6-332779 discloses another method for managing the configuration information. According to the method, the whole configuration information is not set up in the manager. Each computer has only the configuration information of each of its lower-order computers.
Conventionally, to set up the whole configuration information of distributed computers, the configuration information is entered to the manager manually at a time. In this case, in case the configuration of a branch office, a department, or the like in the system is modified, the supervisor of the manager computer must modify the configuration, so that the configuration modification of the whole system is concentrated on the manager computer. The load of the supervisor in the modification of the configuration information of the manager will thus be increased excessively. This has been a problem of the conventional method.
In this case, the entire configuration information of the lower-order computers can be set up in each sub-manager. In a large department, however, one department supervisor often manages a plurality of sub-managers, so that the supervisor must set up the configuration information at each sub-manager computer. The supervisor""s labor has thus become a problem. In this case, the supervisor can also modify the configuration information by remote operation. Still in this case, because the manager must set up the configuration information for each sub-manager, it has arisen another problem that the remote operation takes much time and labor from the supervisor of the manager computer.
The method for collecting information from lower-order computers in a network by polling can save the manual data input labor, but it can apply only to the collection of such physical network configuration information as the IP address and the MAC address set in each computer. In actual usage of the configuration information, the method is not suitable for setting up the configuration information of a system when logical configuration of the system must be managed for each use purpose of computers. This is because computers whose use purposes are different from each another, for example, distribution management computers, application execution computers, etc., are often installed together in a physical network. Generally, the logical configuration of a system is often formed over a plurality of networks, so the logical configuration information must be set up separately from the physical configuration information.
The physical configuration mentioned here means information denoting how computers are actually arranged in a network as shown in FIG. 11. Information of respective computers is, as described above, the IP address, the MAC address, etc. set up in each computer.
Unlike the physical configuration, the logical configuration is defined by a human being and it means information denoting the relationship among computers. For example, a supervisor defines a computer 1 shown in FIG. 11 as a xe2x80x9cmanagerxe2x80x9d, a computer 2 shown in FIG. 11 as a xe2x80x9cclient 1xe2x80x9d, a computer 3 shown in FIG. 11 as a xe2x80x9csub-manager 1xe2x80x9d, a computer 4 shown in FIG. 11 as a xe2x80x9csub-manager 2xe2x80x9d, and a computer 5 shown in FIG. 11 as a xe2x80x9cclient 2xe2x80x9d respectively. FIG. 12 (upper figure) shows an image of the assignment. A logical configuration (a hierarchical structure of computers) defines those computers by use purpose so as to represent those computers as a tree structure according to each use purpose of the computers separately from the actual physical arrangement of them. FIG. 12 (lower figure) shows this logical configuration. In the above case, xe2x80x9cmanagerxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cclientxe2x80x9d, etc. are used to describe the definition of each use purpose of computers, but they may be replaced with other words, of course.
The Japanese Patent Prepublication No.6-332779 discloses a method for managing hierarchical information of computers. This publication does not describe any method for setting up the hierarchical information, however.
Under such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide a technique that can solve the above conventional problems and divide logical configuration information of computers into configuration information in specific ranges, thereby making it easier to manage the logical configuration information of each of distributed computers.
In order to achieve the above object, the configuration information management system for managing configuration information of each of a plurality of distributed computers according to the present invention enables configuration information to be set up in a specific range, then the set-up configuration information is reflected throughout the entire configuration information of the system.
In the configuration information management system of the present invention, in case the system configuration information is modified due to addition of a computer, etc. the configuration information denoting the configuration in the specific range including the modified portion is entered into the system then the modified configuration information is sent to all the computers in the range denoted by the configuration information, thereby the configuration information is set up in each of the computers in the subject range.
The configuration information management system of the present invention also requests each of the distributed computers to send its configuration information set up in the computer after setting up the configuration information denoting the configuration in a specific range as described above. Receiving the request, each computer reads the configuration information set up in itself and sends it to other computers sequentially, then receives the configuration information of each of those other computers, thereby updating the configuration information in itself.
As described above, the present invention enables the configuration information in a specific range to be set up, then the configuration of each computer to be set up in other computers so that the configuration information set up in the specific range is reflected throughout the configuration information of the whole system. The supervisor who is not required to know the entire configuration of all the distributed computers when modifying the configuration of a computer, can modify the configuration information of the whole system by giving the configuration information divided into that in a specific range to all the distributed computers. One of the divided hierarchical information layers in specific ranges may include a plurality of department sub-managers.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, configuration information may be sent and set up with a command from a computer that is not included in the system configuration information and the supervisor can modify the configuration information from any place regardless of the place where the manager is installed.
In a specific embodiment, even a computer that is not included in the logical configuration of a system can send and set up its configuration information if it can access a manager computer.
As described above, according to the present invention, because hierarchical information is divided into specific ranges and given to other computers, the logical configuration information of a system over one or a plurality of sub-managers can be managed easily. Because the hierarchical information held in each of distributed computers is minimized, the storage capacity of a plurality of the information can be minimized. The number of computers whose configuration information must be updated due to partial modification of the system configuration information becomes less. This method is especially effective when a system is comprised of many distributed computers.
As described above, according to the configuration information management system of the present invention, configuration information, after it is set up in a specific range, is reflected throughout the configuration information of the whole system, so the logical configuration information of a system can be divided into specific ranges and given to other computers in each specific range, thereby making it easier to manage the logical configuration information of each of those distributed computers.